The issue isn't that men are all criminals. It's that telling women they have to be extra careful/need an escort/should avoid the park, is saying the normal state of affairs is women are victims and targets.
It's also putting the onus for not being attacked on them, not the attacker.
The example of redheads you gave isn't good because that is a useful marker for a much smaller subset of the population. Women are 51 percent of the US; this means half the country is being told they have to worry about being attacked, and they are responsible for making sure it doesn't happen.
The much smaller subset of the smaller part of the population isn't being told to stop it. It's a political point, not about the actions of men, but the treatment of women when being attacked.
Further, and why it's so offensinve, it's a form if victim-blaming. If a woman gets attacked the public will say, "Oh, she ought to have known better."
At the same time, when one points out (as these people did) that blaming the perpetrators (as a class, in the same way women are being treated; as a class), in the form of unknown men (just as this warning was aimed at the unknown women who might be attacked), people get upset... it so unfair to men.
Well, as a man, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's in the same category as telling men who don't want to be rapists that it's very simple, all they have to do is not rape people.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 04:57 am (UTC)It's also putting the onus for not being attacked on them, not the attacker.
The example of redheads you gave isn't good because that is a useful marker for a much smaller subset of the population. Women are 51 percent of the US; this means half the country is being told they have to worry about being attacked, and they are responsible for making sure it doesn't happen.
The much smaller subset of the smaller part of the population isn't being told to stop it. It's a political point, not about the actions of men, but the treatment of women when being attacked.
Further, and why it's so offensinve, it's a form if victim-blaming. If a woman gets attacked the public will say, "Oh, she ought to have known better."
At the same time, when one points out (as these people did) that blaming the perpetrators (as a class, in the same way women are being treated; as a class), in the form of unknown men (just as this warning was aimed at the unknown women who might be attacked), people get upset... it so unfair to men.
Well, as a man, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's in the same category as telling men who don't want to be rapists that it's very simple, all they have to do is not rape people.